{"id":214,"date":"2024-12-15T22:35:37","date_gmt":"2024-12-15T22:35:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/storytimebyrk.com\/?p=214"},"modified":"2025-11-07T02:31:53","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T02:31:53","slug":"boundary-of-shadows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/storytimebyrk.com\/index.php\/2024\/12\/15\/boundary-of-shadows\/","title":{"rendered":"Boundary of Shadows"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Genre: Western<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Plot: Hired guards protecting the mysterious forest are picked off one-by-one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Words to use: gate, entrance, border, boundary, kill, shadow, death, unknown, mystery, frontier, lawless, rule, challenge, face-off, smoke<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Smoke<\/strong> billowed from the makeshift fire. Sparks flew as the logs dropped and Gareth poked the fire with the metal poker. \u201cWhat do you reckon, Bill, about the mystery<\/strong> we are guardin\u2019?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAll I know is that it has me shakin\u2019 in my boots,\u201d Bill replied, his rifle at the ready. His rough hands gripped the barrel and butt until he could relax and returned to cradling it like a baby. Until he knew what the sound was, he had a tendency to point at any random chirp of a cricket or cry of an owl. To say he was on edge was an understatement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt sure is the biggest challenge<\/strong> I\u2019ve ever undertaken,\u201d Gareth replied, \u201cI used to being out on the frontier<\/strong>, not stuck in one place, especially don\u2019t like not knowin\u2019 what I am guardin\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWell, if we needed to know, I\u2019d reckon they\u2019d tell us,\u201d came the curt reply from Bill, who was mid-scan of the entrance<\/strong> to the forest they were being paid to stand watch over. The rule<\/strong> was no one goes in nor out. If anyone was to venture in their parts, they were to alert someone on the other side of their radio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The iron gate<\/strong> creaked from the rusty hinges as it moved with each burst of natures exhalation. A dense fog that rolled in off the mountain to the north. The moisture gathered as it went down through the forest, and the sight looked like fingers stretching with menace out toward its border<\/strong>. Then it went back to where it started. Gareth furrowed his brow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI swear it smells of death<\/strong> in there,\u201d Bill said, a chill went down his spine beneath his weathered flannel and thick, brown worn leather jacket. The breeze got colder. \u201cHere, let\u2019s add some more wood to that fire. It is getting colder and I don\u2019t want to catch my death<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYour imagination is taking off with your wits, Bill. Don\u2019t be a scaredy cat,\u201d Gareth had added some more logs he thoughtfully gathered before dark. He knew he couldn\u2019t leave Bill alone for any length of time. He\u2019d end up shooting the wrong person and he didn\u2019t want to be that wrong person. Not for this job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI bet you haven\u2019t heard the rumors then?\u201d Bill surmised his partners ignorance in his question. \u201cYou don\u2019t know nothin\u2019 man, do ya?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat rumors, Bill? Tell me,\u201d Gareth\u2019s sinewy arms beneath thick layers of clothes, dexterous from youth, moved the logs around easily, organizing them, and trying to stoke the fire. He looked at Bill\u2019s face through the fire\u2019s light. It appeared deformed as the shadows danced across it, created by the light of the fire and the deep worry lines that had sprung out of emotional intensity of his life. A bead of sweat trickled down through his salt and pepper hair and the side of his face; the two-days worth of facial hair stopped it short and he wiped it with the back of his freckled hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cJust that we weren\u2019t the first ones to guard these woods and its boundary<\/strong>. There\u2019s been others, and they up and disappeared. No one knows what happened to them. Just plumb vanished.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGood god, Bill. I am sure that we ain\u2019t the first ones, but they musta moved on and found other jobs just like we will sure as not. I am not going to stay here for the rest of my life,\u201d Gareth replied, pointing toward his thick, muscular chest with his calloused thumb; dismissive and resolute were his opinions. \u201cI don\u2019t believe no ghost stories, Bill. I don\u2019t got time for that. No, sir. Beggin\u2019 your pardon, and I don\u2019t mean no disrespect, seeing you are of an age much older than me, but I just don\u2019t believe it.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seemed Bill had the time to worry. His usual gruff voice failed momentarily. He cleared his throat before he replied. \u201cWell, it\u2019s the unknown<\/strong> that worries me. Why do they want this forest guarded at night? Who are they keeping out, or, an even more terrifying thought, keeping in that god forsaken forest?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bill pointed his rifle toward the dark outline of the trees. Gareth shook his head in disbelief. Bill took off his hat and wiped his brow then placed it securely back on his square head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBill, you told me you just came from the lawless<\/strong> west, no wonder you\u2019re a shiverin\u2019 mass of bones. Not everyone here is out to kill<\/strong> you. I ain\u2019t worried one bit, just you wait till light. We\u2019ll be fine and live to tell our stories of sitting in front of the fire, you telling ghost stories and scaring yourself half to death.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWell, be that as may, Gareth, but my one rule<\/strong> is protect your butt at all costs. One thing I don\u2019t want to do is have an old-fashioned face-off with a Spector, ghost, or anything un-natural. Human foes are good enough for me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sudden sound of a metal click far off drew their attention. The shadow grew out from the forest. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat was that?\u201d Bill jolted his rail thin body in a full 180 degree turn toward the sound inside the forest. Gareth stood up from a crouched position, pulling himself as straight as he could to look in the direction. Out of caution, of course.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just an animal, Bill. I am going to grab some more wood. I thought we had enough, but the fire just eats them up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was plenty of trees that were outside the forest\u2019s edge. Mostly maples and ash that gave off litter of stick and leaf debris but no logs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWell, damn. It is gonna get awful cold and dark soon,\u201d Gareth said to himself. It felt good to talk to himself out loud. He shivered. A scream and a rifle shot echoed through the cold night air. He darted back to the entrance, calling for Bill; over and over again. No sound, just the sound of the wind blowing through the forest canopy. The creaks and breaking of limbs could be heard loudly and definite. It was a pattern forming in Gareth\u2019s mind. His eyes darted, hoping Bill had just stepped away to relieve himself. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBill, stop messing around and answer me,\u201d he yelled, the forest creaked in response. A shadow grew, he noticed it, edging closer and closer. His heart rate spiked and his eyes grew big. It inched closer as his feet failed him, his knees weak from fear. Work legs, work, he told himself, then tumbled onto the soft dirt beneath him. The shadow wrapped itself around him and with a swift action, grabbed his legs and pulled him into the forest. The only sounds was his scream, then silence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The radio crackled: \u201cAndrew to Gareth, come in.\u201d Then again for Bill. Then silence. The breeze cackled through the trunks, satisfied for the night. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Copyright \u00a9 Rachel D. Knepp.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author\u2019s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means\u2014including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods\u2014without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations used in reviews or critical articles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Genre: Western Plot: Hired guards protecting the mysterious forest are picked off one-by-one. Words to use: gate, entrance, border, boundary, kill, shadow, death, unknown, mystery, frontier, lawless, rule, challenge, face-off, smoke Smoke billowed from the makeshift fire. Sparks flew as the logs dropped and Gareth poked the fire with the metal poker. \u201cWhat do you reckon, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":215,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,18],"tags":[7,10,11,4,32,12],"class_list":["post-214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-western","tag-fiction","tag-shortstory","tag-story","tag-storywriter","tag-westerngenre","tag-writingprompts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimebyrk.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimebyrk.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimebyrk.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimebyrk.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimebyrk.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/storytimebyrk.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":478,"href":"https:\/\/storytimebyrk.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214\/revisions\/478"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimebyrk.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimebyrk.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimebyrk.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimebyrk.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}